Jesse b



NITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JESSE B. HODGES, OF SALEM, ARKANSAS, ASSIGNOR OF ONE-HALF TO JOHNSON P. WOODS OF SAME PLACE.

COMPOSITION SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 526,229, dated September 18, 1894.

Application filed February 24, 1894..

as hereinafter described and pointed out in the claims.

Prior to tanning, I soak the hides till soft and remove all flesh. Hard hides ought to be worked over on the flesh side to soften them. The hides are then limed in the following way: I take twenty (20) gallons of water and add about twenty-two (22) quarts of slaked lime, and handle the hidesin said solution several times the first two days and afterward once a day till the hair is made removable. I then remove the hair and flesh. The hides are then ready for the bate which is prepared as follows: To twenty (20) gallons of water add. one bushel of wheat bran and one peek of hen manure, the whole to be plunged well, when the bate will be ready for use. In the hating operation, thehides should be handled several times a day tillfree of lime; they will thus become soft and limber; they are then thrown on a table and worked over on the flesh side with a steel knife or rubber, and on the grain side with a stone knife or rubber; they are then scoured with clean water, when they'will be ready for the tan. The tanning liquor, to which the hides are then subjected, consists of about twenty gallons of waterhaving dissolved in or mixed with it five pounds of the extract of palmetto root, half apound of stramonium, two pounds of gambia and five pounds of salt. In this Serial No. 501,429. (No specimens) liquor, the hides are to be plunged well, and handled once a day till the grain is tanned. Five pounds of theextract of palmetto root should be added each day till the hides are well tanned. The hides are then taken out of the tanning vat and scoured well, till the ooze or remaining liquor in them is removed, then hung in the shade till half dry, then the grain sides of the hides are oiled, and afterward the flesh side of them is stufiedwith oil and tallow in equal parts, mixed. This puts the tanned leather in condition ready for finishing.

Thepalmetto or saw palmetto, the extract of the roots of which is used in the above described tanning liquor, is of abundant growth in many parts of the coast portions of the United States, and one cord of these roots contains about as much tanning property as two cords of the best oak bark, and the same can be gathered at a very inconsiderable expense. Said roots can be crushed and their essence extracted for much less than the best oak bark extract can be obtained.

By the process herein described,light hides will tan in two days and the heaviest of hides in twenty days, and at a cost of about three cents per pound to the tanned leather.

Having thus fully described my invention, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent The herein described composition for tanning leather, consisting of water, extract of palmetto root, stramonium, gambler and salt, in about the proportions specified.

JESSE B. HODGES. Witnesses:

JOHN G. FEULNER,

W. M. CASTLEBERRY. 

